Workplace Nightmares·
BREAKROOM COFFEE HEIST
A new hire misreads free for anyone and covertly pockets two bags of coffee, setting off a revealing office caffeine drama.
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By lunch on her first day, a new hire had already emptied the office coffee supply and walked out with it in her purse.
She had started the morning seeming "pretty high strung," but, as one coworker put it, "nothing too hard to deal with." Nothing in the training session suggested a disaster. Then, midway through the day, she wandered into the break room and spotted two large, full bags of Starbucks beans sitting by the coffee maker.
"whose are these?" she asked.
Someone explained that the beans were for everyone: "oh those are free for anyone to use, the company buys coffee for everyone." The new hire took that in stride and answered, "oh cool."
That was the end of the conversation. Or so it seemed.
As she was leaving for the day, the story took a hard turn. She apparently treated "free for anyone to use" as a cue to take the whole supply. Both bags of beans went into her purse.
At first, the office just knew something was off. There was no more coffee.
That was the clue that pulled the whole thing together. The missing beans were traced back to the new hire, and the team realized the break room coffee had not vanished on its own. Someone thought they had seen it happen, though the account does not say exactly who.
The next day, she came back to work for about 10 minutes.
Then she was called into the manager's office.
After that, she was gone.
No dramatic speech was recorded. No explanation from the office was shared. But the sequence was clear enough: on day one, the new hire asked about the coffee, heard it was free, said "oh cool," and left with both bags of Starbucks beans. By the next morning, the office had connected the missing coffee to her, and her first job was over almost as soon as it had begun.